Reader's Watchdog: Who should pay for cleanup after death?

Jul. 21, 2012

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Photo is of Susan Applegate holding a photo of her late son. /// submitted photo

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Diabetes ended Peter Brown’s 18-year career in the National Guard in 2005. This summer, it took his life.

The 42-year-old’s body was discovered June 8 on an inflatable mattress inside his modest apartment on Forest Avenue in Des Moines after a neighbor complained of a foul smell. A medical examiner estimated Brown had been dead for five days.

Days after the body was found, Brown’s landlord, Conlin Properties, enlisted Iowa CTS Cleaners to decontaminate the apartment. The hefty cost: $6,002.84 — and now the landlord and Brown’s family are squabbling over who should pay.

Shortly after Brown’s death, his mother, Susan Applegate, received a phone call from building manager Steve Peters saying he would send her a check to return Brown’s $1,550 prepaid rent.

But nine days later, Applegate received a copy of the cleanup invoice from the property manager and a letter telling her that the money would go toward the cleanup — and she owed a balance of about $4,450.

“Please let us know how you would like to arrange for the balance of this invoice,” the letter from Peters stated.

Applegate didn’t call The Des Moines Register Reader’s Watchdog until after she had an upsetting phone conversation with Brett Mills, Peter’s boss at Conlin Properties. She said Mills wanted her to make payments to compensate the company for the excessive cost of the cleanup.

Mills inquired about any assets or life insurance her son had, and whether there was an estate, she said.

“He said, ‘This is your expense. When are you going to start paying?’ ” said Applegate, who lives on a fixed income. “I said, ‘This is not our responsibility.’ ”

When I called Mills last week, he said he was surprised Applegate was upset. The company’s lawyer said the damage in the apartment was beyond the normal wear and tear provided for in Brown’s lease, and that he was simply inquiring whether Brown had assets that could cover what insurance did not.

When I asked whether Conlin’s insurance covered all the costs, he said the damage was only partially covered. “But no one,” he said, “ever asked (his parents) to pay or suggested that they were liable.”

Mills said he was trying to determine who is legally entitled to the rent Brown prepaid. “We don’t know the source of where those funds came from,” he said.

Applegate told me as I sat in her south-side house that the source was a large disability check that her son received just prior to moving in to the apartment in May.

She said after Peter was discharged from the Guard with a medical disability, he had drifted from job to job, and in and out of homelessness. She also said he had struggled with alcoholism, failing health and relationships, and nightmares since his deployment to Afghanistan in 2004.

When Brown’s poor knees ultimately resulted in disability compensation from the Veterans Administration, he put five months’ rent down on the apartment at 3407 Forest Ave. and made an attempt to take better care of himself.

“He was taking his insulin, applying for jobs,” Applegate said. “But he was constantly having low-sugar problems, and they say when you have low sugar, you can get confused. I think that’s how he must have wound up dying.”

Brown’s bank account had a balance of negative $38 when he died. The scene the hazardous waste team ultimately walked into with protective suits and respirators was gruesome: Brown’s body had turned green and black, and bodily fluids had seeped into the floor.

Jim Conlin, who heads Conlin Properties, told me he’s had many people die in his units, but none of their bodies had been undiscovered for so long. Still, repairs were made to the floor, the air ducts were cleaned, and the apartment was quickly rented out again.

Conlin said Mills has been consulting with the company’s attorney, but he assured me he did not intend to pursue any money from Brown’s estate for the extra cost of cleanup.

“I’m not about to rack up legal bills to get blood out of a turnip,” he said.

Still, he said, he didn’t think the $1,550 Brown put down on future rent should go back to Applegate or Brown’s father, who lives in Bradgate. “It’ll either go to us or the government agency that gave it to him,” he predicted.

That upset Susan Applegate. Disabled herself from a stroke since adolescence, she is still grieving how her son’s life ended.

She said she went to the Polk County Courthouse to get an affidavit of survivorship, which allowed her to settle his negative balance with the bank. She said she was told by lawyers she consulted that the affidavit should also entitle her to any assets he has, provided they are less than $25,000.

Robert Oberbillig, a longtime legal aid attorney who advises law students at the Drake University Legal Clinic, agreed.

An affidavit of survivorship should be all Applegate needs to receive a refund of the prepaid rent money, he said.

“Clearly, the money should not go back to the government, since it was his once it was received,” Oberbillig said. “It would only be spiteful to do that.”

Ben Bellus, an assistant attorney general who has handled many landlord-tenant disputes, also said he believed any assets due Brown would go to his mother. Though Brown had no will, Iowa law provides for the money to go to parents without the need for probate, he said.

Other lawyers I consulted said that might be true, but it depends on the language in any lease agreement Brown signed. Conlin said he was unsure whether the lease allowed him to keep rent money for damages, but he would check.

Oberbillig suggested that Applegate send a copy of the affidavit to Mills and try to obtain the refund. If she had any problem, he said, the Drake Legal Clinic could likely be able to assist her.

I told both Applegate and Conlin I would like to hear from them when the dispute is resolved.

Applegate’s husband, Brian, told me his wife didn’t want the money for selfish reasons. The parents want the money to go to a local VFW. Peter was so proud to have served in the Guard, he said, and it was one thing they thought they could do to memorialize him.

“But they would rather give money belonging to a dead veteran back to the government instead of his family?” he asked, bewildered. “For goodness sake.”

Lee Rood’s Reader’s Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Contact her at lrood@dmreg.com or by calling 515-284-8549. Read past coverage at DesMoinesRegister.com/ReadersWatchdog.